Experiences

I wanted to explain a little bit about why this subject matters to me and how my experiences have sparked an interest in women's choice to work.

When I was growing up, my mother stayed home full-time taking care of my brothers and I, while also keeping up the household tasks. My whole life she has been a stay-at-home mom and I've never known her to have a job or career of her own. Parts of this have been very, very nice - I have been very close to my mom my whole life, I've always had someone to take care of my everyday needs, and things seemed pretty easy. Although many aspects of having my mother at home were wonderful, I wonder how much I gained and how much I missed out on simultaneously. Is there any way that I was raised in a more nurturing environment that is conducive to learning, merely because my mother was at home with me all day? The research I've done clearly shows that in the long-run my cognitive development hasn't been any different from that of my peers who had working mothers. So if I didn't gain any advantage in my early development, what else was I missing out on?

One of my close friends grew up in a family where her mother and father worked full-time. Even from the point that she was born her mother chose to cut her maternity leave short in order to return to work. After getting to know more about her situation growing up, I started to wonder how having her mother at work changed the way she grew up. First of all, she talks a lot about having to assume responsibility from an early age. I'd like to think that I learned how to be responsible, but when comparing to my friend I've realized that I spent a lot of time being taken care of rather than learning how to take care of myself. She also talks about having her dad cook and share in many of the household tasks - something my father never did. I think by seeing these actions, she has been able to see how an egalitarian household can successfully work. Even though I completely agree with equal gender roles, I never had that model to follow after. Things were obviously very different for her but she and I ended up at the same place here at St. Olaf.

I don't know that these experiences can be indicative of how growing up in working and non-working mother households has an effect on children, but they seem to show some main differences in our mindsets. It'd be really interesting to see how these things differ across experiences.